Trip 2 Flight 16 Day 16 LHR-HEL 18.40

Day 16 LHR-HEL 18.40

Class: Business

Airbus A320

Tier Points: 80

I have lots of time to spare and it’s a pretty nice day so I head to see the Olympic park as it’s quite close to London City airport. The DLR at London city is fantastic, driverless. How long before TFL gets rid of those £50k+ huge pension and perks drivers on the underground system?

I’m not really sure what I was expecting to find, I see the Olympic stadium being renovated, the weird sculpture/viewing tower thing and the aquatic centre. All in all it’s a bit of a mess here. I’m glad I visited but certainly nothing here to warrant a special trip. It’s not particularly clear to me why anyone would visit it as a ‘park’. It was also very lacking on references to the Olympics, they could certainly have done a much better job of putting up some statues of athletes or pictures of the event/site as it was during the Olympics as a standing memory of 2012.

I get a reply from an old school friend and he can meet me on his lunch break so I head for Southwark on the tube for a few drinks.

We have a good catch up, I then get on the tube and head to LHR as my girlfriends flight lands there at 3pm.

Piccadilly line is massively crowded, I’ve got a moral objection in giving money to the overpriced monopoly that is the Heathrow express and judging by the amount of people on the Piccadilly line with luggage I’m not the only one. In the interest of keeping the tube free from LHR passengers with baggage someone needs to regulate the Heathrow Express prices, its madness that people are using the tube from central london whilst near empty express trains go direct in from Paddington.

My girlfriend lands on time but unfortunately her bag was not put on her flight (she connected HNL-LAX-LAS-LHR). BA confirm the bag is not in the UK, she has a receipt from HNL showing that it should have been forwarded all the way. Only time will tell if it turns up.

Due to the faffing with the bag she misses her bus and has to wait another 2 and a half hours for the next one.

I would love to just drop my last 3 flights and go home now but I can’t. I’m feeling pretty rough after 3 long flights and 2 elongated connections. As I clear security at T3 I’ve been going for almost 36 hours without a hotel.

I briefly go to the F lounge at T3, grab a light salad and some water and then board.

I’m falling asleep on the runway, after take off I’m pretty much solid asleep until Helsinki. We land, Helsinki airport is a joy to navigate and I get the shuttle bus to the Holiday Inn.

Its midnight in Helsinki and its still light. I get off the bus at the wrong stop and have a very plasant 5 minute walk in a mild and light Helsinki. Birds are singing.

I’m an IHG platinum (status matched from Hilton diamond) and have paid for the hotel on points, I’m upgraded to an executive room. I’m intrigued to see what an exec room at a holiday inn consists of. I was suitably impressed. The most impressive thing of all was the seemingly free minibar in the room, I helped myself to some chocolate and water from it and was not charged for this.